Despite rumors, Democratic nominees for governor and U.S. Senate aren’t going anywhere
Despite rumors, Democratic nominees for governor and U.S. Senate aren’t going anywhere
Plus learn about the Fort Wayne native in the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons
Before the guilty verdict in Donald Trump’s criminal case last night eclipsed everything else, former U.S. Senator Joe Donnelly announced yesterday that he was resigning his position as U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican and would be returning to Indiana on July 8 — just five days before the Indiana Democratic Party state convention — sent tongues wagging.
Last year, Indiana Democrats had openly pined for Donnelly to run for the open U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mike Braun, but he turned down those overtures. Now, with primary winner Dr. Valerie McCray having raised less than $15,000 as of mid-April, journalists speculated that Donnelly’s move might mean he is coming back to take her spot on the ticket and run against Jim Banks in the general election.
It wouldn’t be unprecedented. In 2016, former Indiana governor and U.S. Senator Evan Bayh did just that. U.S. Senate nominee Baron Hill stepped aside in July so that Bayh could take his place and give Democrats a better shot at beating then-Congressman Todd Young. (Young won by a 52-42 margin that fall and was re-elected with even better numbers in 2022.)
Gubernatorial nominee Jennifer McCormick was another candidate some thought Donnelly might be planning to replace on the ballot. Politico’s Adam Wren reached out to Indiana Democratic Party chair Mike Schmul — Donnelly’s former campaign manager — to ask if that might happen. Schmul’s response was short and sweet: “No.”
Of course, anyone who’s spoken with McCray or McCormick over the past year — as I have — would know that there is absolutely no chance of either stepping aside for Donnelly (or anyone else) regardless of what their chances of winning might be.
McCray feels no loyalty to the Indiana Democratic Party because she knows their leadership didn’t want her to be their Senate nominee.
One Democratic insider confirmed as much to me earlier this year. This person called McCray a “kook,” citing her decision to try to run for president as an independent in 2020.
“I have never, ever been so sure about something that I’m so unsure about in my whole life,” McCray told the Washington Post in a story about long shot presidential candidates that year.
Despite not receiving party support, McCray and her statewide team of volunteers managed to obtain the 4,500 signatures she needed to get on the primary ballot with plenty of time to spare, then soundly defeated former State Representative Marc Carmichael for the Democratic nomination, garnering more than twice the number of votes he did.
Similarly, several leaders inside the Indiana Democratic Party aren’t happy about McCormick being their gubernatorial nominee due to her past history in the GOP. In 2016, she ran as a Republican for Indiana superintendent of public instruction, upsetting Democratic incumbent Glenda Ritz by seven points. (Current Indiana Republican Party chair Anne Hathaway managed McCormick’s campaign.)
In order for Donnelly to replace either woman on the general election ballot, McCray or McCormick would have to willingly step aside for him. Considering how hard each of them fought to get there — including against some of the same party officials who would now be asking them to drop out — the chances of that happening are non-existent.
Bayh, Bayh, Bayh?
The same day Donnelly made headlines, news about another Hoosier Democrat — one much more likely to run for statewide office in the next ten years — surfaced on social media.
In a tweet, Evan Bayh posted photos from his son Beau Bayh’s graduation from Harvard Law School last Thursday. The two posed with Beau’s twin brother Nick Bayh, who currently works as a strategic football analyst for the Indianapolis Colts. Nick and Beau’s grandfather was former U.S. Senator Birch Bayh, who died in 2019.
While his brother seems to prefer the sports world, Beau Bayh — who also rose to the rank of 1st Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps and was deployed to Europe after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 — is seen by many Indiana Democrats as the party’s best hope to break their string of losses in statewide races, which dates back to 2012.
That year, Donnelly defeated Richard Mourdock in what many considered a fluke election. Mourdock rode the Tea Party wave to an upset of longtime Republican Senator Richard Lugar in the GOP primary but lost in the general after declaring during a debate that “Life is that gift from God that I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
Evan Bayh rarely tweets — he did so just five times in the past year — so his sharing the news of Beau’s Harvard Law School graduation might hold more significance than a typical father’s proud social media post.
What’s not yet clear is whether Beau Bayh actually wants to run for office in Indiana, and if he does, how far into the future that will happen.
Historically, his last name has been a strong asset in Hoosier politics, but as his father knows all too well, it’s already been 20 years since a Bayh has won an Indiana election.
Do you know Fort Wayne’s famous con man?
I know it’s not technically politics, but when a Fort Wayne native makes national headlines as the man behind the biggest Ponzi scheme in Hollywood history, it’s worth noting.
Zach Horwitz, a 2005 graduate of Carroll High School, managed to steal hundreds of millions of dollars — including from friends and their family members right here in Fort Wayne — before the FBI arrested him three years ago.
In the current edition of The New Yorker, staff writer Evan Osnos details Horwitz’s dramatic rise and fall in an 8,000-word deep dive:
Master of Make-Believe
A struggling actor struck it rich in Hollywood—then the F.B.I. showed up.
Anyone who visited Zach and Mallory Horwitz in 2019 would have said that they had made it in Hollywood. They lived in a six-million-dollar home on Bolton Road, within walking distance of Beverly Hills; there was a screening room, a thousand-bottle wine cellar, and a cabana laced with flowering vines by the pool. The Horwitzes had hired a celebrity decorator and installed a baby grand piano and framed photographs of Brigitte Bardot and Jack Nicholson. On social media, Zach posted pictures of himself courtside at Lakers games; Mallory shared images of their toddler playing in the California sun. For Mallory’s thirtieth birthday, Zach paid the R. & B. artist Miguel to perform for friends at the Nice Guy, a voguish restaurant in West Hollywood.
The couple, college sweethearts from Indiana University, had arrived in California seven years earlier, in search of a new life. They had started the cross-country drive with their dog, Lucy, on New Year’s Eve. In L.A., Mallory trained to be a hair stylist, like her mother and grandmother back home in Santa Claus, Indiana. Zach, who had secretly wanted to act ever since he saw his first Broadway play as a child, landed a few tiny parts: he played Demon 3 in one film, an unnamed basketball player in another. He was not quite movie-star handsome, but he had gleaming teeth, an aquiline nose, imposing biceps, and turquoise eyes. For a stage name, he chose Zach Avery.